| Abstract [eng] |
This doctoral dissertation analyzes the state and employers’ policy and the experience of working parents in the process of family and work reconciliation. In Lithuania, society faces various obstacles regarding family and work reconciliation, and unbalanced reconciliation of family and work responsibilities has problematic consequences. According to working parents face a variety of problems that mainly raise due to: non-compliance with formal policies and non-compliance with the laws in the workplace; unfavorable informal policies; due to the legal regulation in the state. In Lithuania, laws regulate both legal and social protection for working parents and their families in the process of family and work reconciliation, however the state does not interfere too much in determining the work organization conditions relevant to the family-work process and in the relationships between employees and employers and leaves them free to find compromises for themselves. It means that institutional pressure is not strict and the rules give freedom to the non-formalization of policy. In the workplace, the most important agents are the employer as the head of the institution and the line manager, whose roles may overlap. It was determined that the final decision on (non)-application of family-friendly measures is usually made by line managers. It means that although there is institutional pressure from the state, implemented through formal state policy, and formal workplace policy, however, final decisions are made at the individual, informal level. Informal policies applied by line managers for employers in the workplace are much more significant than formal family-work policy measures implemented by the state, because they focus on solving specific problems in real-time and cover measures related to the work organization of employees and the allocation of their time. The experiences of working parents encourage manifestations of adaptation to employers’ rules of the game. It reveals that employers are in a position of power and that the resulting distrust in the state leads to the need to shift more responsibility to employers and employees. |
